A story: my mom had tuberculosis as a child, in postwar Hong Kong. TB, fyi, is serious and deadly. Her sister also had it and has long-term health issues. My mom recovered, but TB stays dormant in your system for the rest of your life. (1/X) In early 2020 my mom was prescribed a biological medicine for something unrelated. It suppressed her immune system and reactivated her TB. Fortunately, her doctors screens for this and caught it right away! Because… TB is also super, super infectious. (2/X)

Guns make us SO FREE that people in Maine are still on lockdown while police hunt for a mass killer armed with an AR-15. We can’t keep living like this. But yeah, sure, let’s focus on people in drag, LGBTQ+ kids, and books that mention sex of any kind, that’s the REAL danger

Horrifying but unsurprising findings here, including: misogyny & racism are rampant and intertwined in the inc*l community, that most already are misogynistic before joining, & “in*els degrade all women but women of color are doubly denigrated by incels.” psypost.org/2023/06/analys… If you’re wondering why I put an asterisk in the previous tweet, it’s because I’m one of the many, many women of color that live rent-free in these dudes’ minds. I still get random comments from them on unrelated tweets, out of the blue.

For an interview, I tried to look up the exact date of a particular attack on an elderly Asian American during the pandemic. There were so many similar attacks it took me multiple attempts to find the specific one I was referring to. Even narrowing my search to
- Asian person stomped
- caught on camera
- midtown Manhattan
- daytime
led to *multiple* cases. Multiple.

That doesn't include the other cases where people were beaten, stabbed, punched, kicked, had acid thrown on them...

What I’m getting from these “just stop masking!” pieces is that deep down, some people feel so guilty about not masking that they’d like everyone to stop… so they can stop feeing guilty. 🤔 I think I’ve talked about this before, but in grad school there was this one guy on campus who always wore a bike helmet. All the time, inside and out. In class, walking around. It was a bit unusual, but okay, cool! If he likes wearing a helmet, why not?

So @Harvard just sent out an email that says "COVID is not going away"... and then cancelling all COVID tracing and mitigation measures university wide. Brilliant. "Students and employees will no longer need to report a positive COVID-19 case to HUHS. Anyone who tests positive will manage their isolation independently by referring to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance."

In Winchester, not far from me: “The 7-week-old baby w/ RSV [was] struggling to breathe. But these days, pediatric ICUs in Massachusetts are usually full. ‘We called every hospital within 200 miles, and they all said, ‘We don't have a bed, do your best.’“ wbur.org/news/2022/11/2… “Another child would have to wait a little longer to receive treatment.”

Today is #SmallBusinessSaturday and it’s a great day to support your local independent bookstore! Find one near you (and don’t forget that many will ship): indiebound.org/indie-store-fi…

Here are some things you might not have known your indie bookstore offers: 1. Your indie bookstore is staffed by actual humans who read books, love taking about books, and can give you personalized recommendations for your mom, siblings, friends, uncle, neighbor… or yourself. Just ask them! #IndiesFirst

Because a system of white supremacy often views (East) Asians as "white adjacent"--the non-scary kind of diversity! honorary whiteness!--until it's inconvenient. Don't fall for this, folks. That acceptance is *always* conditional.

https://twitter.com/mattxiv/status/1593016081643233280

From this recent study: White people often see Asians as white-adjacent, while most Asians (and Black and Hispanic Americans) see Asians as people of color. Don't aim for whiteness. Aim for dismantling a system in which whiteness is the key to power.
brookings.edu/blog/how-we-ri…

Ms. Marvel is just so utterly winning. (Non-spoilery thoughts): Her family is so adorable. (“Speakerphone is just so convenient!”) I love how they include Bruno in the family, too.

Positive case in the kid’s summer camp cohort. Masks optional (he’s masking). They eat inside. I asked if the classes could eat outside for a few days. They have not. Director claims he can’t “force” counselors to have kids eat outside. I am about to lose my religion. Why is there such intense resistance, everywhere, to taking even the smallest steps to minimize spread? They are outside MOST of the rest of the day. Why not lunch, the one part where kids CANNOT mask?

Was walking home w/ a friend and her young daughter (also Asian), and a car was apparently annoyed that it had to wait for us to pass. Driver yelled out the window, “Shoulda run your ass over, damn Chinese-ass bitch,” and then made ching-chong noises.

I am so fucking tired. Ironically, this friend and I were literally discussing the Cambridge/Somerville Asian American Festival she’s helping to organize for this weekend. So… yeah

“Looming… is a common fear among librarians that they could land on Fox News — which in turn might inspire social media harassment campaigns.” But some librarians are fighting back. ❤️👊 washingtonpost.com/education/2022… “Administrators, afraid of attracting controversy, were quietly removing books from library shelves before they could be challenged.”

The Gilded Age finale mostly made me want to re-watch Downton Abbey, so I am. I have literally forgotten almost everything about this show, including 1. third daughter Sybil, 2. Anna was just a parlormaid at first, and 3. the entire existence of murderous valet Mr. Bates

YESSS look at this sexy beast I mean LOOK at it

As weird as the Mandalorians are with their helmet thing and “this is the way” and all, their philosophy of loyalty to those you love is way more compelling to me than the whole Jedi “release all attachments to everyone you ever cared for” thing “Baby Yoda, you can either go spend your life with someone you love who absolutely adores you and would die to protect you, or you can stay here if and let my laser ball shoot you and learn not to care about anyone ever” hmmm

I’m getting sick of clarifying the same things, so
1. Dawn pitched this article to the NYT herself.
2. She was not part of our writing group or friend group. I met her once. Most of us didn’t know her well (if at all). I’d never heard anyone mention her name before this. 3. People get catty in group texts & emails. Dawn was not and never had been in this group. She subpoenaed them to see what we said, and then gave them to the NYT.

Every time a giant inflatable thing escapes its handlers I feel such a rush of joy

https://twitter.com/MetroUK/status/1440654105861521408

For example, the runaways giant pumpkin in Arizona in 2015: turnto10.com/news/videos/ca…

Because I'm definitely not procrastinating in any way--a legit research Q. What are some books that include fictional epigraphs? i.e., an epigraph to the real book, but the epigraph is totally made up? I have stupidly asked two very different questions that are both answered by book titles within minutes of each other and now my mentions are full of VERY different book titles with no context 😂

Seems like a good day to post tips for those coping with organized harassment. Some things that have helped me in the past: Report and block, with emphasis on the block. You can't argue with someone who is approaching you in bad faith. Listening and discussion and change are important, but sadly, harassers aren't interested in any of that. Block.

This is a thorough, well-reported look at the "Men's Rights Asians" movement that's organized harassment against countless Asian women, including me. Thank you, @aarontmak. slate.com/technology/202… "In this thinking, racial justice is a zero-sum game, and the increased focus on the Black experience has relegated Asian suffering to the bottom rung." Yep.