"Go home chink eyes"

Hooray! I acquired some angry fuel today to drive along my first entry.

This morning, I signed on to facebook to the message, "Congratulations to Michael Phelps and all of the U.S. athletes." Naturally, with my ability to spend many hours on the internet clicking away at useless things, I clicked on to Phelps' page. And then clicked on the first thread I saw. And then read it. And then got really mad and reported it.

The girl who started the post asked whether Phelps was gay. Admittedly, it was a dumb and groundless thread, but a harmless one. Whatever. If anything, I think it's kind of funny and to be expected. Nothing was worth getting worked up over, until I read the blatantly racist responses.

This thread I happened to click on was written by an "Elizebeth Leung" and she was immediately attacked because of her name. One of the first responses was "your just angry because he beat China in every event." Right. Because the name Leung must mean that she is ethnically Chinese and therefore from China. And because there aren't more than 3,000,000 ethnically Chinese people in America? Some other poster reiterated the same obnoxiously racist sentiments I found at the window of Geno's Cheesesteaks (they sell shirts that say "This is AMERICA: When ordering, please speak ENGLISH'"). Why is it so wrong of people if they've never had the privilege to learn it? I wish they'd do away with this patriotic I-love-America crap and actually sympathize with these less-than-wealthy immigrants just honestly trying to make a living.

I know that when my parents came to the U.S., they had a really rough time juggling less-than-minimum-wage jobs as factory workers and taking care of my two brothers by themselves. They didn't come knowing any English because they never had the luxury of attending school in Hong Kong. And how can you expect a newly-immigrated working couple with two sons to work out enough time and energy to learn English? That wasn't what they were most concerned about -- they just wanted to make enough money to get by and raise us comfortably so that we can have an easier life. I admire them immensely for coming so far with so little, and can't bear other ungrateful privileged folk snickering at their inability to speak fluent English.

I probably shouldn't be angered so easily by something as trivial as an online thread, but it really brought out the defensive and resentful person I can be, knowing all that my parents have gone through. I just wish they'd be a little more open-minded, a little less proud, and stop and realize that somewhere along the line, their ancestors had immigrated here without speaking English, either. And finally, some jackass kid said something along the lines of "go home chink eyes im sick of all you illiterates crowding up the south." The nerve! Anyway, I reported that post. Asshole.

What's the lesson here? Don't aimlessly click on dumb online forums. Until my next encounter with something that pisses me off!