On Honoring How Michelle Go Lived
I started a piece about facing fear before I read the news about Michelle Go. The topic still feels pertinent, but I’ll wait till next week as honoring how she lived her life seems more valuable right now.
To my AAPI community, I hope you’ve found joy despite this painful news and are taking time to make sense of your emotions. I want to acknowledge your experience and while I don’t know your pain intimately, I share it.
I didn't know Michelle, but her death hit closer than any other in the AAPI community the past few years.
She isn't an immigrant elder, as so many victims have been. She was a knowledge worker at Deloitte. A kind soul whose actions lined up with her beliefs. An active volunteer with the New York Junior League, ironically, helping the homeless get back on their feet. A Bay Area native turned New Yorker. A UCLA and NYU alum. 40 years young, waiting for a subway on a Saturday morning, when a homeless person pushed her onto the tracks.
Michelle could’ve been any one of us.
There are no reports of racial motivation, but the challenge is anytime there is an AAPI victim and a hate crime is not clearly communicated in the attack, it's impossible to divorce the possibility of it being racially motivated, consciously or subconsciously, when there is 150+ years worth of xenophobic history activated by a more targeted campaign the last 2 years that has permeated the (sub)conscious of the mentally ill, the ignorant, the racists, and the emotionally underdeveloped.
After a while, it stops mattering why someone did it when people who look like you keep getting attacked. It's a constant reminder that you're a potential target to anyone you come across at any time of day, anywhere.
But we still have full lives we want to live. So, how do we proceed?
We'll each have to find our own way of navigating the world alongside our fear and anxiety, but a few words from Michelle’s vigil/rally this past Tuesday struck me about how she might've handled this.
Her friends spoke of her fearless approach to life, how she took chances, and how she lived life to the fullest. These words are from her friend, Kim Garnett...
What Michelle would want you to take away…
Go do the things that matter to you. Don’t wait for tomorrow to give your permission or grant yourself time.
Contribute. Whether it’s work, volunteering, being a good friend… do something.
Like what you do. We had so many conversations about whether what you’re doing is worth the time you’re spending on it. She really loved finance and helping her clients really work through challenging situations. Figure out what that equivalent is for you.
Have fun.
40 years feels so short, but I get the sense that Michelle got more out of her 40 years than most do in much longer lifetimes.
That seems like the hallmark of a life well lived and I wish that for all of us.
🙏🙏,
Pam
PS - I’m grateful we were able to learn more about Michelle and understand her a bit better as a unique human. Crimes against the AAPI community show the socioeconomic gaps within our communities. Many victims have been elderly, poor, non-English speakers who don’t have public or active online lives and don’t have people sharing their stories. The details about who they are, what they loved, and how they lived are few and far between. It doesn’t make them any less human and their trauma any less painful, it just makes them less known to us. Despite that, I hope you’ll keep them in mind and consider what actions you can take within your circle of power to do as Michelle did... Contribute.
PPS - If you're able to do your job remotely and are nervous about going back to work, talk to HR about getting a WFH concession for anxiety. Anti-Asian attacks and identity driven issues are not sufficient legal reason to get concessions, but anxiety is. Consult an employment lawyer to get specifics.
