Thank You, Lucy Liu

I’ve grown up consuming quite a bit of media. When I was younger, I watched Sailor Moon and The Power Puff Girls religiously. As I got older, I started enjoying detective shows like CSI and Psych.  I was attracted to the intelligence and strength of Catherine Willows and the sass of Juliet O’Hara. I don’t know if you can see a trend forming, but ever since I was young I’ve had an affinity for strong women. But as much as I admired Sara Sidle and Detective Olivia Benson, there was just something about them that didn’t stick with me in my mind.

When the 2000 reboot of Charlie’s Angels came out, I was stoked. Not only was it centered around three extremely strong and intelligent women, but there was someone on the screen that not only acted similar to me, but looked like me as well. Seeing Lucy Liu portray someone as badass as Alex Munday made me think that it was possible for me to be strong as well. When I watched Kill Bill a few years later, I was even more impressed with her character. She was the head of the Tokyo Yakuza clan and didn’t take shit from anybody.

Lucy Liu was always one of my favorite actresses for the sole reason that she was represented as strong and powerful. Yes, there’s a multitude of strong and intelligent women in the media, but how many of them are women of color? How many of them were of Chinese decent, like I was? 

Lucy Liu is just one woman in a sea of predominantly white women in Hollywood. We need more women of color represented in the media. We need more women like Gina Torres, more like Mindy Kaling, or Michelle Rodriguez, we just need more. This is so extremely important becaust not all women in America are of European descent. Strong women are Asian mothers, Mexican daughters, African Aunts and  Argentinian grandmothers. Women of color are so infrequently represented, but it’s so important to see people doing things that we don’t traditionally see them doing. 

If American women were represented as diversely in the media as they are in real life, I don’t think it would be such an outrage that Nina Davuluri was crowned Miss America. If American women were represented as diversely in the media as they are in real life, women wouldn’t be so paranoid about their appearance, about how their eyes aren’t blue, or how their curves don’t exist, or how they have too many curves. We have to see people that look like us being accepted to feel accepted. 

So to all the women of color in the media, I say thank you. Thank you for representing all the women out there who look like you, sound like you, and want to be you. I say thank you most especially to Lucy Liu, for making me feel like I have the ability to be a strong woman in America but still manage to have tiny eyes and a spit-fire personality. Thank you for showing me that my path can differ from societal expectations.

Child’s Play

My aunt constantly reminds me about my preschool moments when she would pick me up from school and I would tell her about my day. I would tell her about the trouble makers, the math problems, and probably what I had for lunch that day. But I also remember telling her about this one boy who was so mean to me that I couldn’t muster up any other words but “stupid”. He was a “stupid” boy because he was so mean to me and I had no idea why because I didn’t do anything to him.

Now why on earth would this kid who I barely interacted with at all go out of his way to make fun of me as much as possible? Why would he torment this girl who’s never done anything to aggravate him in any way to the point of angry frustration? To the point where the only word that a 4-5 year old me can only muster up the word “stupid” over and over again to describe his actions?

My aunt told me that he treated me like that because he liked me. 

Let’s twist this situation just a little smidgen. Let’s make both kids 13 years old.  Would it be perfectly acceptable for this boy to verbally degrade, tease, and torment me as much as possible? Would that be a way to legitimately get someone to go to the dance with you? Is this an opportune moment to say, “Oh, boys will be boys!” and then smile and turn away?

Let’s twist this situation a little bit more. Let’s make both parties 30 years old and let’s say they’ve been engaged for 3 years. Would it be acceptable to say, “He’s only acting like this because he loves you” when he continually berates and humiliates his fiance?

Allowing these actions to pass by us at a young age is dangerous.  If you let actions slide when a kid is six, how will they know it’s wrong when they’re 10? If you let it slide when they’re 10, how will they know it’s wrong when they’re 18?

The point is if you’re going to teach your children to behave a certain way, you cannot let this behavior slide when they’re young. It’s misleading to let them get away with it for a few years and then suddenly turn around and condemn them for something that seemed perfectly acceptable before. 

Start from the beginning. Instead of just letting bad behaviors go, encourage good behavior. If your little man has a crush, teach him to show his new lady love and compassion. Teach him how to pick flowers for her instead of pulling her pigtails. If your little girl has a cutie on her mind, tell her to share her fruit snacks instead of pushing him to the ground. Teach your children to love and to care for other people instead of dismissing their aggressive behaviors as child’s play. 

Kids will be kids if you don’t teach them how to be adults.