how difficult is it to be a good person?

on casual bigotry and the regression of kindness culture

The Social Network (2010)

Recently, I was set up with a guy I was told I’d “click with” — supposedly, he was witty, intelligent, academically accomplished, and employed. All of these qualities checked certain boxes my exes and past flings previously had not, it seemed harmless enough, and plus, I was in a good place mentally and emotionally to start talking to someone new, so I thought, well, it couldn’t hurt. I gave our mediator the green light to pass my information along because I didn’t want to make the first move. If he wanted to talk to me, he’d talk to me. I expected to hear from him within a couple days to a week, but I got a text from an unsaved number within the hour. Someone’s eager, I remember thinking, but I really did respect the enthusiasm. Like I’ve mentioned before, guys these days seem to be too nonchalant and act like they couldn’t care less, so the swift contact was a green flag in my book.

On a purely surface level, we seemed to have a lot in common: family wise, in terms of education, taste in music. We were both eldest children of large families, so naturally, we bonded over that first. Well, that’s what parentification will do to a person, he’d said when we were connecting over eldest sibling struggles. Talking to him was frighteningly easy, but in hindsight, maybe that’s just because of my expert conversational skills. But, I digress: all in all, it was going well — too well. I knew there had to be something wrong, because why was a guy this great still single? Then again, I was too, so the hopeless romantic in me had a bit of hope for this pairing. But I also have met my fair share of wrong guys, so the pessimistic part of me also figured it was just a matter of time until an issue revealed itself. And then it did.

Somehow, he’d brought up the topic of race. It isn’t really relevant how, but he did. I found it a little off-putting that it was being talked about at all though, because this was a white man making comments on Asian culture (a group that I clearly belong to). I assumed this was just an innocent observation, but I had a feeling that this conversation was going to begin treading dangerous waters. So, in an attempt to divert the discussion to a lighthearted one, I recalled how as an Asian person with an internet presence, I had been compared looks-wise to all seven members of K-Pop group BTS at some point over the years, by racially ignorant people online. Which is obviously so ridiculous, I said. Because I’m Filipino. He already knew this fact, with me having mentioned my ethnic background the night before in passing. But in response to this, he said: To be honest, I wouldn’t have ever guessed you were Filipino.

I honestly tend to get this a lot for some reason, so I wasn’t offended. I guess it’s an understandable misconception. Oh, really? What did you think I was? I asked innocently. Then he proceeded to say something I cannot repeat — but it was related to me having a lighter skin complexion, and that prior to knowing what my ethnicity actually was, he initially thought I looked more like an Eastern Asian person than a Southeastern one (the latter of which Filipino happens to be part of). But the terminology he used was deeply racist and derogatory, implying that one type of Asian was more civilized and advanced, and alluding to heinous descriptions of savagery for the other. I was shocked. I had genuinely never been called a slur like that in my life.

And with such ease, at that. I deserved to go ballistic on him, but I ultimately decided to make it a teaching moment, on the off chance he genuinely didn’t see what the problem was. It’s very possible that no one had ever taken the time to explain to him why that specific phrasing is wrong and what implications it held. I realize in hindsight that this was just me, once again, trying to fix someone — but in the heat of the moment, I felt an overwhelming conviction to teach him that these sort of things aren’t okay to say as a white man to an Asian person, let alone a woman he was attempting (and failing) to court. I also knew the second he uttered those terrible words that I would never be speaking to him again after this, but I wanted to make sure he knew just how offensive it was before I exited the conversation for good.

I didn’t want to simply gloss over it as a simple misstep on his end, for two main reasons: one, so that he would never repeat it or any other racist terms ever again, and two, so there was absolutely no other way he could twist my reasoning for ending it. I wanted him to know that I was dropping this, not because he was weird or anything, but because he was an insensitive bigot. At that point, I didn’t even care about him saying it to me anymore. All I cared about was making sure he knew saying those things is wrong — especially as a white person. To which he replied, You’re overthinking it. But I guess I have to know my audience. I’ll steer clear of that with you from now on. He then went on to claim that he spends a lot of time around people of color, and that his Asian friends told him those jokes were okay, which was obviously not a satisfactory response. I didn’t want him to make racist jokes anymore, period. But I guess if this is how he acts at 24, no amount of explaining and teaching can change his behavior. It also just goes to show that academic accomplishments aren’t everything when it comes to intelligence. And for someone who claims to be so parentified, why did I just have to lecture this man like I was his mother, for not being aware of such a basic human decency?

I left that interaction with a singular thought circling around my head over and over: how difficult is it to be a good person?

Not even a great person, just a decent one. The bar has seemingly plummeted its way through rock bottom and embarked on a journey to the center of the Earth. With each day that goes by, there appears to be a strange motion happening within the fabric of society — a seemingly regressive movement that is actively pulling us back toward behaviors and attitudes I thought we left behind us in previous years. It feels so unreal to watch people my age pick up ancient prejudices and offensive phrasings with a kind of ironic distance that makes them think the whole thing is okay. Posting something casually cruel and calling it dark humor or just being real, as if adding quotation marks around bigotry somehow transforms it into commentary. Prejudices have once again made themselves at home in our culture’s conversations, and bigotry has learned to speak in indoor voices, hiding behind phrases like I’m just saying and you know what I mean.

It’s not just blatant slurs and hatred becoming more and more widespread in our culture, it’s almost as if people are no longer practicing the art of apologizing. Something we often forget is the power of a good, genuine apology. I’ve been thinking about the word sorry lately — how it sits in your mouth like something both sweet and bitter, how it can feel like swallowing pride, or offering peace, or sometimes both at once. But in situations like the one I endured, individuals who are bigots to their very core tend to lack the self-awareness and humility to admit what they’re doing is wrong. There was not one single real apology within the interaction I had with that guy. The only time the word sorry was ever spoken was when he told me he was sorry I was offended, but surely not for saying it in the first place. As if my taking offense was the problem. Not his words. He was annoyed that I wouldn’t accept his apology and just move on — but there wasn’t one to accept.

If the case had been that after I’d let him know his word usage was deeply offensive, and he responded like so: Oh, really? I had no idea that’s what it meant. I’m so sorry, I won’t say it anymore — the current state of things would be very different. No deflection, just a recognition of harm and a promise to do better. But he kept justifying why he said it, telling me I was overthinking, and not being receptive at all to my explanation of why what he said was offensive. Because it’s easier that way, isn’t it? To apologize without ever having to change? To say sorry without having to mean it? I ultimately deemed him a lost cause, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same case for everyone else.

I can’t help but feel like this resurgence of widespread negativity and hatred exists in tandem with the ever-fading of kindness culture we took on during the early days of the pandemic — when we were all so scared the world was ending so we began to care about each other, being more gentle and forgiving in the very same spaces where hatred has once again made itself at home. I understand it’s extremely dissonant to miss something that stemmed from so much pain, but weirdly enough, I do. But only in the ways we spoke to each other in those first weeks, soft voices and please stay safe, and genuine questions about how we were all doing. Like we’d all collectively remembered that everyone we talked to was carrying something heavy. But now, post-lockdown, as things have begun to return back to normal, so have our attitudes toward one another.

It feels almost like everyone is embarrassed now of that earnestness. The world is in the process of opening back up, and with it, all our familiar cruelties. It’s like society is making up for lost time, rushing to prove they’re not those scared people anymore, not those people who needed each other so obviously, so embarrassingly much.  It’s so easy to forget what we learned when we were scared enough to be honest. When we admitted that we needed each other, not just to survive, but to feel human. What scares me the most is how quickly we’ve shifted back — the idea that maybe we can only access that level of care with one another through crisis. Is that what we’ve become? People who can only be kind when we’re terrified? Is our capacity for gentleness also dependent on our proximity to disaster?

I want to believe that somewhere, under all the performative indifference, we remember what it felt like to care so openly and to need so honestly. Pretending not to need each other doesn’t make the need go away, it just makes it harder to admit. We are losing something precious in forgetting the art of apologizing. I think the real work ahead of us lies in not just learning to be kinder, but learning to be better when we fail to be kind. Learning to say sorry like we mean it, like it matters. Like it’s not just a word, like it’s a door we hold open for each other. The world seems to be getting harder and colder by the day, but perhaps learning how to apologize well is a kind of revolution in itself.

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