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… But what I’ve come to realize over the past few weeks is that even if I don’t identify with that designation and find it overly broad, like it or not, it shapes how people see me. The only path forward for any of us requires a united front.
If someone says, “You Chinese are killing us,” I am in that moment Chinese. Whether I give the other person a piece of my mind or not — awkward, perhaps, from six feet away — my instinct should be indignation, not deflection. Because one of many lessons I’ve learned from the pandemic and its consequences is that focusing on being misidentified by a xenophobe is nothing better than trying to negotiate a more accurate insult.