ASIANS?

The man who yelled at me to go home was at Starbucks again. This time, he shouted at me, K, and M, “you ASIANS study too much! What are you trying to do? Run the world?”

The next morning, M asked me if the man above might be at Starbucks again. Trekking a backpack full of heavy books, I shot a look at M as I opened the door to Starbucks and said, “The bar exam is a day away, I don’t have the mental fortitude to deal with racism right now, so he can just suck it.”

1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, 3 one thousand, 4 one thousand, 5 one thousand…

We arrive at our usual table. A large white man sitting in the chair next to our table puts his newspapers down and exclaimed, “ASIANS? With your books and bags, so serious!”

did that really just happen?

He didn’t know the meaning of “shuttfup” and continued to K, “I knew a couple of ASIANS once, at the Hastings Law School”

He’s a lawyer? he’s an educated man?

“Yeah, they got in through those ‘affirmative action’ programs, you know, and a year later they were all on law review and I wasn’t! Can you believe that? And I thought, there’s something wrong here. Are you on law review?”

K said no.

“No? why not? Why aren’t you? Why?”

because I split my time between law school and building the railroad, that’s why.

Imagine walking into a coffee shop and saying to three people,

“BLACKS? Hey I knew a black person once! She got into LAW SCHOOL and ACTUALLY ended up doing really well! Isn’t that weird? By the way, got rhythm much? Can you dance for me? I hear your people do that well!”

Or,

“MEXICANS! Taking a break from picking strawberries are we?”

People would never say the above, but it is somehow acceptable with Asians that they can do it with a smile. It's all the "model minority" BS. But I don't have the time to get into that discussion right now, I've got to put on my cone hat and get back to working at the rice paddy.