I’ve been thinking about the concept of white supremacy a lot in recent weeks given the heightened awareness of racial injustice in the world, and I realized that without even realizing it or not, every single one of us plays a role in white supremacy whether we realize it or not. Many white people hear the words “white supremacy” and think that the term does not apply to them, that they do not modify their behavior based on the color of a person’s skin. But that could not be further from the truth. We’ve been born into a world that lives by the concept of white supremacy. If we were to be void of white supremacy, we’d also be void of socialization, which would be impossible. We live in nations taken over by white people from indigenous peoples. White people have colonized lands from the African to Asian continents. In schools, literature and history is taught with a focus on the white world – European and American history. World War II history lessons in U.S. high school courses barely touch upon how this great world war also had atrocious events such as the rape of Nanking — merely because it took place in China, and who cares about China? In English literature courses, we are focused on Shakespeare, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, J.D. Salinger, Leo Tolstoy — just the great works of white men. In Advanced Placement art history, I distinctly remember asking my instructor why we were skipping over about half of our fat art history book that covered Asia and Africa. My instructor responded that those parts of the world were not covered in the AP exam, so we wouldn’t have time to cover those. But of course, if I was interested, I should go ahead and read those sections on my own for self study.

Message to take away from this: the European and western world matter. The African and Asian world do not.

And that’s pounded into our head time and time again. And whether we realize it or not, we internalize all that messaging and think it’s just normal.

That’s why when I traveled to Cambodia with friends in 2012 and wondered out loud what delicious dishes there were to eat in this country I’d never before visited, one of my friends’ husbands memorably responded back, “Yvonne, I don’t think you should spend too much time researching food here. There’s a reason that Cambodian food hasn’t made it big in the U.S…. it probably isn’t that good.” I angrily shot back that this idea was ridiculous and snobbish. What I failed to verbalize at the time, which I know now, is that his statement was soaked in white supremacy and racism. His statement indirectly said, “If white people have not embraced this people’s food, then there’s no way it could be good… because the white man knows best for all.” It was a justification of white colonization, that white people have to save people, approve of the foods and cultural practices of people of color.

I finally finished reading yet another Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book today called Half of a Yellow Sun. So far this year, especially given quarantine, I’ve read a lot — 19 books to date, and this is definitely one of the biggest highlights (among ALL of the other Chimamanda books – I’m truly in love with this woman). The book chronicles the lives of three different individuals during the course of the Nigerian-Biafran War, also known as the Nigerian Civil War, which took place from 1967-1970. The book grapples with many themes, such as moral responsibility, white colonialism, ethnic allegiances (Igbo, Yoruba, Muslim), and class and race. Given that Biafra is not on the map today, we know without even reading this book that Biafra fell and Nigeria (the original government) won the war in the end. What we get from this book is exactly how ugly war can be, how racism and classism seep their way into everything, especially when it comes to life and death. Over three million people died during this war, whether it was due to casualties, famine, or pure war fighting. Do those lives not matter because they are Black? Is that why I was never taught this in school? As the book says, “It was like somebody sprinkling pepper on his wound: Thousands of Biafrans were dead, and this man wanted to know if there was anything new about one dead white man. Richard would write about this, the rule of Western journalism: One hundred dead black people equal to one dead white person.” 

While contemplating this book after finishing it, it made me angry to think that I never learned about this war in school. I never learned African art in art history. We barely touched African geography. It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized that Africa the continent was downscaled significantly by a bunch of racist white map creators; in fact, Africa is bigger than China, India, the contiguous United States, and most of Europe, combined! The African continent takes up about one-fifth of the world’s landmass. The only African history I ever learned was a tiny bit about Egypt and Cleopatra. What is wrong with our society, with our world, that we wouldn’t teach about such huge populations and pieces of land in the world and favor only certain parts lived in by white people? Is this just going to continue, and for how long?

It’s our first Independence Day in New York City since 2012, and neither of us is particularly chipper about this today. Yes, I know: we’re lucky to have jobs, a place to live, to be healthy. We’re grateful for that – we really are. But this long weekend just seems so gloomy without the travel we were so used to at this time of year. It’s as though there’s really nothing left to look forward to, and it’s a bit depressing.

We went down to the Lower East Side today and finally had a small meal at Baar Baar, an upscale Indian restaurant we’d been meaning to try for a while. Everything was really delicious; the cocktails definitely blew me away. The restaurant was lucky in that it had lots of space to set up outdoor seating, so we were able to find a comfortable table outside that was shaded. It was the highlight of our day… when normally on this day, we’d be running around some new, amazing city, eating endless new things and taking in all kinds of new experiences.

This is our new normal. No travel. The only “travel” we will do is go to other neighborhoods or boroughs.

I took the day off yesterday and wandered around Chinatown, attempting to support as many local businesses that I could (which means, as much as I could carry in my reusable cloth bags). I visited a third generation tofu, grass jelly, and rice cake shop, a bakery that specializes in Portuguese-style egg tarts, another that has three locations and is famous for their cha siu bao (Chinese barbecued pork buns, baked), coconut buns, and pineapple buns. The location I go to has temporarily closed during COVID-19, so I went across to the more “real” side of Chinatown to their second location that was still open. I usually like to get their taro bun with a pineapple top, but alas, they are not making them at this time. I purchased vegetables from my usual Hong Kong Supermarket and also from a corner street vendor at Grand and Chrystie. And while exiting the train to start my wandering, I happened to run into the zongzi / joong lady, the one I’d read about online: she was famous for making multiple times of steamed Chinese tamales, from the Cantonese kind I grew up with to Tainan style in Taiwan, using pork belly and mushrooms, to the sweet ones further north in China. I purchased two Cantonese style and two Tainan style to store in my freezer for future eating; I was going home with a LOT of stuff to eat for the next few days.

Chris likes to make fun of me about literally everything, but he especially loves to make fun of me for my love of Asian food and goods, of my excitement whenever we visit Chinatown, whether that’s in Manhattan, Flushing, or anywhere else. It’s not really a novelty for me because I grew up eating a lot of these things, but I still love to explore flavors and styles outside of the Cantonese stuff I grew up with. China is a big-ass country; there’s no way I’d be familiar with everything food-wise that existed.

But that’s the thing: shopping in Chinatown or buying Asian foods and goods is just a way of life for so many people in this city and around the world. It’s not a novelty like it is for so many non-Asians. These businesses need us to frequent their businesses, buy their goods, and tip them so that they can survive. During the last five months, I’ve been worried about what Chinatown will be like after quarantine has officially ended. Chinatown was seeking a decline in clientele about six weeks before the shutdown officially took place in New York City due to anti-Asian, “China virus,” “kung flu” racist sentiment. People have been worried about the restaurant / hospitality business in general; frankly, I am more worried about local, family-run Asian businesses because most of these places in Chinatown run on razor thin margins and count on high volume; their prices are relatively cheap, which means they really don’t take much home (unlike more Western businesses, ahem). A lot of businesses have already closed permanently. The original rice noodle/tofu place I used to go to has closed forever, so I had to find a new one. But what if one day, these businesses are all shut down and all I can find in Chinatown are hipster matcha places or Asian-fusion noodles?