All Things Chill

I was @ work last week, listening to nada ’cause the iPod was dead… and I happen to hear my co-worker describing a member of our organization to her peer. She says “You know, she’s one of those Orientals or something…” I’m no Asian Activist(?) Rights Lobbyist or anything, but I’ve heard some pretty messed up stuff @ the office before (some still use the term ‘colored’ to describe anyone other than… um… themselves). I just about had it with this lady, and I needed to do something about it.

So I wrote her an email (Hooray for passive-aggression!).

Dear fellow co-worker,

From my perspective and all Asians, we like to be called just that, Asians. We do not like to be called Orientals. We are not rugs. Its just something that gets under my skin. There’s no way that you could have known. I just wanted to let you know. Please make a note of it.

~Me

2 minutes later, I see this woman squirming and wiggling like Mama Spec’s Thanksgiving Jell-o mold. She was going on and on about how things have changed since the old days, and how everyone wants to be called different things… blah blah blah. I didn’t have to say anything, she was bending over backwards just to explain herself. It was essentially a 5 minute rant of “I’m just too old for it”. To seriously believe that “I’m just too old for it” is an excuse is complete lunacy!!! In the end, she walked away rambling to herself.

That day… I saw a woman defeated. It was horrific and satisfying @ the same time.

So now that I have that BURNED in my memory, I really don’t know what I’d do if it happened in the office again (or anywhere for that matter). I think it was more painful to see someone backtracking and rambling than it was to just brush it off and let it go.

Oh, and btw… I’m 100% Irish Filipino.

~Spec

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 28th, 2004 at 3:09 am and is filed under Streaming Conciousness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.