I was at my neighbor friend’s baby shower this afternoon. To be honest, it felt really good to actually dress up, wear makeup and jewelry, and get out of the house, even if it was just in our building’s lounge for a few hours. It felt good to wear something other than sweats, my nursing top, and a pumping bra for once. I met her friend, who is a labor and delivery nurse at Lenox Hill, and she shared this horrifying story that nearly left me in tears when I heard it.

At some point in the last two years, a woman gave birth to a healthy baby.. and within hours of being born, the baby was on the dad’s chest doing skin to skin while he was on his phone busily texting family/friends… and he had no idea that the baby’s nose was pressed up against his chest too much and it blocked off his oxygen, and he died. He was dead for over an hour without the dad being aware. Since then, Lenox Hill has a policy that no partner/support person can do skin to skin with baby until after 6-8 hours post birth.

I was so disturbed and upset when she shared this story with me that I nearly started crying. Since going through the insanity of IVF and the emotional intensity of pregnancy and childbirth, and now having Kaia, I physically feel pain when I hear stories like this. I cannot even imagine what that couple’s conversations were like after the death of their child, or if their partnership even survived that.

The United States is one of the world’s richest countries, full of plenty of everything: money, food, land, water. Yet somehow, the people who live in this country tend to take it all for granted, and when they are offered something that could save lives for free, like the COVID-19 vaccine, and three different variations of it, they turn their heads and say, nah, it’s okay; pass! Meanwhile, other far poorer countries don’t even have enough vaccines, and mass graves are being dug for them. It’s a really sad situation, and one that angers me pretty much every day since the COVID-19 vaccines have become readily available. This country has so many vaccines, too many, that we don’t even know what do with them, thanks to a bunch of self-entitled, anti-vax idiots who somehow think their “alternative research” is superior to some of the top scientists in the world. Many of these same people who get angry about being “forced” to get the vaccine, citing, “my body, my choice,” are the same hypocrites who believe that the government should decide on women’s reproductive choices. Isn’t that fun and interesting?

So as I’m getting ready to go back home for the first time since the pandemic, I invited some relatives for dim sum this Saturday, and my aunt and my parents have decided they do not want to go out to eat because they are all scared of the delta variant. This is despite the fact that all three of them are fully vaccinated, and only 1.1 percent of all national hospitalizations are by vaccinated people. That means over 99 percent of all the positive COVID cases are due to unvaccinated losers. They are all scared, saying that it’s too much of a risk. That number isn’t even statistically significant!

While I get that they are scared of catching the variant, this annoys me because this basically means that if I ever want to eat with my aunt or my parents at all during this trip, it has to be at home… one place only. That’s it. That house is a miserable place with a miserable vibe. The point of going home was to be out and about in San Francisco and see friends and family while we were all vaccinated. And somehow, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen unless it’s in the funeral home that is my parents’ house.

My mom has been pretty scared to leave the house for the last year. It’s not just because of the fear of catching the virus, but also because of the anti-Asian hate crimes that have gone up over a thousand percent in this country since stupid politicians kept calling the virus the “China virus” or “kung flu.” My parents are the king and queen of keeping up with scary news, so they have heard all of the stories of the elderly Asians who have been punched, beaten, spat on, pushed down. They’ve heard of the Asians who have been stabbed. They’ve also heard of the ones who have been spat on, blamed for the virus, and told to “go back to China.”

My mom was telling me on the phone yesterday, “Don’t leave the house unless you have to. If you go out, only go with Chris because there’s power in numbers. They will beat you for no reason. Be careful!”

She said she doesn’t feel safe leaving the house by herself anymore, even to walk around the block for exercise, so she tries to only leave with my dad or my aunt. When she leaves the house now, she also said she will only take, at most, $10 with her, in fear that someone will rob her. “It doesn’t matter if it’s just $5, but they will stab you and take your five dollars!” she exclaimed. I suggested she get pepper spray. She said she’d have no idea how to use it and would be scared that it would be used against her. Well… okay, good point.

My mom has been through a very hellish life, particularly for her first 20 years. Then, she immigrated to this country hoping for better opportunities and a good future for her soon to be son and daughter, the way most immigrants have hope for a better tomorrow. What she probably never thought about when she was on that plane from Saigon to San Francisco is the racism she’d have to endure here as a person of Asian descent.

It is a sad reality to think about: racism existed then. It exists now. And when you’re Asian in a society that seems to only “get” race as “Black and White,” you’re just invisible. Hate crimes against your people don’t even get labeled “hate crimes.” It’s like your life doesn’t even matter. It’s been a really depressing week.

So what, now anti-Asian hate crimes get national attention finally after a year-plus of what our former President Dipshit called the “China virus” because a stupid white man in Atlanta decides to storm into multiple Asian massage parlors and shoot them dead? This is what it takes to get national attention when you are Asian in the United States of America?

And yet.. the sheriff refuses to call it a “hate crime” because this shooter “was just having a bad day” and claimed he did not harbor hatred of Asians. We’re supposed to believe this murderer???? And we’re also supposed to believe the racist sheriff and his incompetent and racist police unit?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/18/politics/white-supremacy-racism-asian-americans/index.html

I’ll leave this link here.

An elderly Chinese woman was attacked from behind by a racist white man along Market Street in San Francisco today. But instead of letting him go, she somehow found the strength to take some large stick and beat him so badly that he ended up needing to get hospitalized. Her face is grossly bruised and bloody, and she continues to not be able to see out of one eye, which is still bleeding.

It makes me happy to see that she attacked him back. But to be frank, it would have made me even happier to see her be able to beat him dead. He would have deserved a slow, painful, bloody death.

I recently started reading the book Spillover, which was published in 2012. It’s basically a journalistic book (it reads like a mystery, so it’s fun to read) that documents over time all of the pandemics and viruses that we’ve faced that have originated from animals (it’s the majority of them, if you want to know). While I’ve passively participated in vegan groups, I’ve often read the same sentiment over and over: if we humans stopped eating meat and animal-derived products, pandemics and deadly viruses originating from animals would stop.

If you look to data and science for facts, you would understand that this above belief is simply wrong. One notable example is from the Hendra virus, which began (and ended, ahem, talk about contact tracing and control!!) in Queensland, Australia, in the early 90s. Bats were hanging out at some tree where a horse at a horse ranch liked to rest. One day, the horse got super ill, interacted with all her horse friends, and then she died. Her horse friends who got in proximity to her all died within a week (it was about 40 horses in total). Her closest human care taker died shortly after. Another human, a vet, who interacted with the horse and did her autopsy became ill but survived. These horses were devastating not just for the ranch, but also for the big horse racing business in Australia. With horse racing, you do not eat the horses; you watch them race. So what does this mean: we need to eliminate ANY interaction with EVERY animal on the planet to avoid the next pandemic? How sustainable is that????

Welp. We’re doomed.