Why are we policing?
The biggest romanticized word throughout my adulthood is Freedom. This abstract word can pit countries against each other, start partisan debates, worsen a pandemic and drive children further away from parents. Yet the longer I sit with this word and ponder about my life thus far, the messier it becomes.
Freedom comes at a cost — and though I do not have the complete list, I think I have began to understand that cost. To gain freedom is to assume you also gain trust from someone or a system. For example, to be able to drive my parents’ vehicles assumes that I am at a legal age to drive, have the driving skills and have enough care for their possession such that I would not endanger myself or the vehicle when I drive. Being entrusted also means that I won’t be scrutinized or be policed regularly, and if that happens it would mean that the trust is half-hearted.
Being free to roam around (not in jail) means one is a good standing citizen, and do not have intention to harm others (very simplified, I know). But yet somehow we do not trust that the free roamers are all good people, so we introduced the police forces. In this country, police was introduced to catch runaway slaves and send them ‘back’ to their slave owners who legally maltreated them as commodity in the first place. So fast-forward to today’s world, we can roam free, but in the occasion that we are followed closely or being policed, it means that someone or a system does not think that we ‘should’ be free. Our freedom has threaten their freedom, and therefore some of us can be legally discriminated.
When I exercise a freedom of choice, the result is two fold. One, there is an innate assumption that I might have abandoned a part of where I come from, be it my ancestral language, my traditions and worse, my parents’ way of life. The freedom of choosing a spouse could also be seen as a betrayal to a family clan and ethnic group’s definition of ‘pair made in heaven’. Two, this expressed freedom is so powerful, that it is “threatening” to others so much so that there could be a chain-reaction in place to stop that freedom in some ways to put out that light. Hence, an excercise of freedom leaves one vulnerable and be susceptible to being sandwiched by people from both inside and outside of their original community. Why do you think that the world after emancipation still breathes oppression?
After spending all of my adulthood abroad, I am teased by close friends that though I am open-minded and progressive, I am also in every bit traditional, and why not? Being faithful to a tradition is a remedy to homesickness; it shows that I still have ownership over a homogeneous culture ( food, songs, rituals) that I still share with friends and family, a tribal spirit you may call it. However, I realize, it also provides a false sense of identity that I have played very little part in shaping — it actively distracts me from confronting the ugly truth — that over time, I have grown further away from the clan and for better or worse, morphed into a human being that no longer fits the mold which birthed me.
When I was questioned out loud by my mother one Sunday evening, that I have fail to follow the filial piety rules of Chinese culture (a very much unspoken one) to contribute financially (“consistently monthly”, she stressed) to her (not sure if it was just her or both my parents), I felt nauseated. To follow an unspoken rule is to perform the ritual of filial piety at my own will, therefore to be reminded is an insult. On top of that, to have a quantifiable amount to this tradition contradicts the tradition itself. The freedom to perform my duty as a good daughter was very much taken away from me due to a lack of trust. I considered my mother’s act a way of policing, a very aggressive one, and it was very hurtful.
But on the other hand, many cultures normalize this over-bearing parent-children dynamics and this collective culture rationalizes codependency and sometimes very toxic multi-generational living arrangements. Mexican-American comedian George Lopez brags about him being raised by a strong-willed grandmother who is simultaneously racist against black people thus stopped him from dating black girls. Nonetheless she was being loved unconditionally to the very end of her life, because that’s “what we do”.
Women and mothers are told to put family first and sacrifice their whole beings to their husbands and children (be it enduring men’s abuse but nevertheless still protecting them) because that’s “what we do”. Grandparents ‘happily’ take on responsibilities to raise grandchildren, because parents are tasked to work and bring home the bread, because that’s “what we do”. As long as we are family, we are guilty for each other.
But this collective culture came to be precisely because there aren’t system in place to guarantee benefits, insurance, retirement care etc. for the participants. The unfair system set up by imperialists and colonialists hundreds of years earlier, sustained by new governments has continue to fair poorly against lower income population and new migrants. We are penalized for citizenship, misspelled names, country of origins even as we contribute disproportionately to the essential services in the economy and pay our taxes on time. When the authority fails to become the cushion we can fall back on, these families (mine included) had to look out for each other as they migrate to safer terrains even if it means crossing the ocean blindfolded. The ones who survived and procreated instilled strong mantras to ensure their descendants’ survival, because together they are stronger in number and safety. In the air I can still hear my ancestors whispering, “Lay low, don’t trust the system. They won’t take care of you.”
I have never experienced life as a first-class citizen, period. It is an actual term coined by my government for those who deemed rightful descendants in the land where I was also born in. Even after I left the problematic system and was later granted a scholarship to study in an Ivy-league school, I still do not feel like I have earned my place in this new country because my paperwork pronounced me an alien, a term synonymous to an ugly creature from out of space. I am so used to equating ‘not belonging’ as inferior that I sometimes forget that ‘not belonging’ can also be empowering, as it frees me to choose who and where I put my efforts in to will my new sense of belonging. Giving up longing to be accepted by my original clan also means that I get to choose which tradition and culture to ‘adopt’ and ‘own’. Though my family and I are bound by blood and ancestry, we are in no way restricted by traditions (if it is, it is problematic) and ultimately, how we love.
I can still hear John Lewis’ soft but firm uttering of “Love is action” ringing in my ears. To understand our life’s purpose is perhaps to grasp the idea of how can we love and what is our capacity to love (love in this case is not romantic love); how we are connected with one another is simultaneously personal and expansive. Through the act of love, we constantly examine and recalibrate our prejudices, biases, limitations, and fears. As I continue to exercise my freedom to love and learn to be in this world, my wish for my family is that they can trust my way of loving, trust the woman that I have become, try to eliminate their fears and insecurities thus their need for policing. Perhaps only then can I truly taste the purest form of freedom.
