(Beau Sia) Okay. Can We Stop Calling it Interracial?

"okay. can we stop calling it interracial?"

once again. do i really? aren't there soldiers being maimed overseas? isn't clean water becoming more difficult for the world's poor? i believe the situation in jena, and all of its implications, is still going on, right? my sister says the neo nazis in germany are becoming better dressed, going to school in order to become teachers, and making it more controversial for her to wear her new balance sneakers (apparently the N has been co-opted). it's funny how she speaks fluent german, but because it isn't fluent enough for the germans (what is the word for the thing that is only in germany?), the people she is speaking with will often defer in german to her jewish boyfriend, who an say three phrases, i believe.

in thai park, in berlin, every sunday, the thai people of berlin come and sell homemade foods, drinks, and hang out with their families and do a bit of gambling. i went once. in the distance, there's a group of 10-15 older gentleman of anglo (i really don't know what word i should be using here. can we please get a standard. it can't be caucasian. have you been to caucasus? i haven't. white? that really seems limiting and too empowering. can someone with real brains please inform me? fact checker?) descent, just f------ drooling over the asian women, and some of the asian men, as well.

was i grossed out? yes. it's gross. it used to be extremely angering. especially considering the history of war. now, it's kind of really pathetic. i would feel the same gross if i were in thailand, and at german park, a group of thai men were just losing it in their pants, waiting for a strudel. but who am i to judge the neurosis of others? who cares how emotionally stunted these people are? or how ineffective they are at interacting with others on a real level? who cares what the games of power are that are being played? that ain't my life. i'm not those women/men. i'm not the dudes in the chair. we all compensate in one way or another, we all want different things. am i supposed to be the judge of what love is acceptable? or what love is? not for anyone else. How exhausting. plus, where do i draw the line?

maybe she needs citizenship. maybe she needs euros to feed forty people back home. maybe he needs to feel strong. maybe she wants her children to be more accepted by the majority population. maybe he heard something. a rumor, perhaps. maybe she heard something. maybe they're running from their history. maybe the conflicts of nations makes standards out of killers. maybe the images we are most presented with become the realities we chase. maybe the needs of individuals are not found in romance novels, but in business manuals, in internet porn, in finding acceptance and nurturing in ways that webster's doesn't have enough room for in the dictionary.

and maybe none of this applies to the inter-ethnic couples on the street that walk by me everyday, all the time. maybe it's every definition of love i've ever imagined. i've ever wanted. maybe it's all the commitment and sharing, and acceptance that survival couldn't compete with. maybe it's that spark, that thump in the heart, that leaves skin and society in ashes at their feet. maybe it's the holding of hands that can't be defined by any ethnic studies course on the planet. i don't know. i don't know these people. and furthermore, i don't know why those of asian descent are so concerned with inter-ethnic dating in this country, nor why it only applies to couples that are asian and not asian (although, perhaps future dna testing will show that we are all asian. i'm not science.)

in the philippines, my cousin made me promise not to tell anyone that we had spent some of the night hanging out with a filipina woman. in manila, the chinese have parties where they only meet each other. wow. where do we draw the line and why? i don't hear much about asian men and women from other ethnic backgrounds in this great nation, but there is no end to how much i've had to listen about asian women and dudes from different ethnic backgrounds. why is that? do you own that woman walking down the street? is she engaged to you? is that your property because your origins are the same continent? are you angry that you don't look anything like the guy she's dating? Who cares what she likes? and who knows why she likes him? it might have nothing to do with the nose, the ancestry, or the skin.

look. do you want more? or do you want me to get to the truth? you're probably not filled up enough with my thinking. you probably want the woman on the street to see how she's betraying something that she is not responsible for. fine. i've had plenty of white girlfriends. there. i said it. maybe you don't know where i'm from. oklahoma. is that an excuse? no. that's part of the reality. have you watched any movies in the last thirty years? do you know what's on cable? picked up a magazine at the airport? tell me, have you seen the covers? do you know who has been kicking ass and setting up military bases all over the world to ensure freedom and never have to follow the laws of the country they're occupying? can you tell me the ethnic content of every chapter in world history class? public school, mind you. i'm not referring to you, montessori (which reminds me. people love to bring up how they were raised in san francisco, and because they were picked on by all the asian kids that it makes everything i ever write and say wrong. please. stop looking for reasons to discredit things that don't fit the reality you'd like, and start helping me build the scope of this reality we all participate in).

like, when i'm 19, dating brittanie (seriously), i'm saying to myself, "ah, now the white people will accept me." i don't know that. i think she's gorgeous. she has everything i'm taught is gorgeous. we like the same shows. other guys in my town think she's pretty. the list goes on. we all go on. like the child who likes everything as long as it's red, we grow out of our simple concepts of love or we don't. we evolve or we stick with what is comfortably trained into us. no offense, but we are individuals built by the input we have processed, and the choices that has caused us to make. some of us keep looking to f--- what they're taught is a f--- doll, because men are supposed to find f--- dolls they can control to f---. get my drift?

am i supposed to judge someone for being that f--- doll? am i to assume that's what they are? am i supposed to judge someone for looking for that? am i supposed to assume that's why he's with her? no, and no, and no, and no.

as i get older, i continue to refine what i want from relationships of the romantic variety.

i continue to examine the implications of my actions, and the realities and context my relationships with others exist in. i work to make sure that i am not loving from a place of illusion. i make choices to try and break from all the baloney i'm filled with, so i can see people for who they are and not what i want them to be, or what i'm told they are. i take it day-by-day. ten years ago the aspects i deemed signs of true love are laughable to me now. that's what's been happening, because i want to keep on trying, working, failing, mistaking, and growing from this experience, because each person i am sharing this type of intimacy with (whatever that means), is different, no matter how alike some may look, or no matter how similar they're interests are. i have to remember that, and act accordingly. and it's exhausting at times. wonderful, beautiful, etc., yes, but exhausting. sometimes i want to snap, and once i actually did.

so you see, i don't have enough time to be responsible for your love, ideas of love, and decisions with regards to love. i can't dictate to you, no more than i will allow you to dictate to me. i've got so much already in my interaction with others to worry about what you're doing. you love how you want, you see what you want, you do what you want, you determine the depth of love you want to risk it all for. you do you dawg. let me do me. we all need different things, that's why i'm not meant for everyone. i don't want to be with someone just 'cuz i'm supposed to. i want to share my life with someone because, well, i don't want to get into what i'm looking for. my love is not an add or a profile. it's my experience. and no one else's.