What is an activist?

For a long time, ever since high school actually, I've cared about issues of race and racism. I remember really getting intersted in it after a six week summer course at UCLA, which eventually became my dream school (that dream has yet to be fulfilled). After class, I would hang out at the bookstore, look at the selection of sweatshirts and sweatpants and end up slowly going through each letter of the fiction section. One day, I found myself in the "Asian-American studies" section. Books on Asian-Americans written BY Asian-Americans! I became one with that little bookshelf, disappearing into my own little world. I can picture it now, my 17 year old brain running a mile a minute as I flipped the pages, learning so many new things at once. With the turn of each page, the boundaries of my mind extended until all that was left was a mind ready to molded and to soak up all that was available. I had the freedom to read, to write and to explore my own identity as a Chinese Canadian youth.

I told my friends about the injustices of the rail roads, of men being forced into running laundromats, of Vincent Chin. Just like me, they were surprised, angry even. When I got to university, I put all of those issues on the backburner but they were always on my mind. Having lived in Hong Kong for six years and moving to Kingston, Ontario, I experienced culture shock. Even though I had spent the "early years" in Toronto, living in a dorm at Queen's was different. I remember once saying that I needed sunglasses because I was blinded by the sea of whites. I did not fit in with my floor and made few efforts to join in on their "movie-making" or board gaming nights.

In second year, I met Laura (an inspiration to all Gold Lions and Gold Lion wannabes). She became my go-to when I wanted to talk all things to do with race and racism. We discussed Asian-American history, what it was like being a minority at Queen's and so many other things. We learned from each other, or at least I learned from her. What we agreed most on was how few Asian "activists" there were on campus. By activist, I mean Asian students (or even professors) who were aware, or conscious, as we called it. We came to see most Asian students as Queen's as complacent Asians, blind to any form of racism or opression in their lives. We bitched and moaned and became haters of our own kind. Where Laura and I differed was how she started to become involved...and I didn't.

For the last two years, I've seen her devote herself passionately to so many different causes, running from meeting to meeting and planning countless events. She continues to do all this to this day, while I sit on my ass and write. Honestly, that is all I've done. I worked for the school paper, in hopes of bringing some attention to issues of ethnicity but alas, I was a mere minion in the cog that was the Journal. That sounds kind of bad. What I mean to say is that at the end of the day, stories were assigned and story ideas were shot down. You can pitch as many stories as you want (or not) but there is always someone higher up and usually smarter about these things, to tell you what will be a good story. A good story usually means something that is relevant and interesting to readers. I think the problem at the Journal had nothing to do with a lack of openmindedness but a concern for whether it was something students wanted to read about. I tried, but probably not hard enough.

I came to know the bunch of girls that Laura worked with; they were intelligent, strong and opinionated. They treated each other like sisters, fighting, yelling, laughing and bonding. For some reason, I never felt like I fit in and never felt the need to either. I agreed with many of the things they said but always felt like an outsider. Now when I look back, I think it was my shyness that got the best of me but at the same time, I also didn't want to delve as deeply as they did. I cared, but not enough. I tried to help, but never tried hard enough. I had opinions but wasn't opinionated enough. I finally admitted to myself that I was not an activist like they all seemed to be.

I am mostly talk and little action but I am also trying to change that. As an observer more than a participant, I want to become active and fight for the things I believe in rather than just bitching about it with friends but I've also seen what becoming an activist can do to a person. I have nothing but love for what those girls do at Queen's, but to me, I see a clique. It has become completely "us against them." It might feel that way at times and it might actually be the case but that kind of mentality can be hurtful and alienating. Those who aren't working with them or don't believe in the exact same things that they do must, of course, be working against them. What is hard to remember or understand sometimes is that we're all at different points on our "journey" to enlightenment. Some are more aware than others, some come from different backgrounds that might make it easier or more difficult to understand and simply put, people think differently.

I am definitely not faultless when it comes to this. I constantly need to remind myself that it is not an us versus them battle and I need patience. I need patience to talk to people who think so differently than I do that talking to them makes me want to grab their shoulders and shake them hard and yell "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" I have yet to do that but the thought has crossed my mind many a time.

Wow, I actually don't know what my point is anymore but the ladies of En Vogue said it best: Free your mind and the rest will follow... Before you read me, you gotta learn how to see me. Activist or not, there is no point if you forget that at one point, we were also completely ignorant and racism (and internalized racism) was and probably still is, deeply rooted in all of us. It's hard to try and understand where someone is coming from but so what if it's hard? I say we should all try, and in my case, try harder.