Is America Safe For Asians Right Now?

Is this safe for Asians to move to America right now? Or is the risk of danger just out of control? Welcome everybody to the Hot Pop Boys. David and Andrew here. What are we talking about today? Oh, there was a Reddit thread where somebody from China was asking, is it safe to move to America right now? Or is the anti-Asian hate violence and Sinophobia just gotten so crazy that I'm not going to have a good life? Listen, there was a lot of thoughtful and complex answers because the answer is, spoiler alert, not yes or no. It depends. But we have three main points that are going to help you think about this topic. So if you're ready for this, please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys. And please turn on your notification bell because we are dropping hot topics that are also important. So David, what's the first point? The first point is that your safety is a conditional probability formula. What do you mean by that? Basically, there's a lot of factors in everybody's life. I know in the Reddit thread, some people were trying to say, oh yeah, should you move to the Northeast? Should you move to the Midwest? Should you move to the Pacific Northwest? Should you move to the South? Guys, even within those states, there's a ton of cities. And even within those cities, there's a ton of neighborhoods. And even within those neighborhoods, there's a ton of buildings and a ton of houses and a ton of streets. It could vary so much. And it even matters what you do for your job, what's your risk exposure. Some people were saying, oh, well, I lived in Houston my whole life and I'm just an IT guy that works from home. My brother works in retail and he heard a hundred times, thousand times more racist things than I ever did because he meets like 500 strangers every day who are mad at him. Yeah, I mean, to put it plainly, I mean, it's a fairly, it looks like a simple mathematical equation. But basically, you just plug in the probability of different factors and they stack up on each other. You multiply them and then you get the overall probability of something happening. So it's like, if, yo, is anything bad gonna happen to me if I move to New York City? Well, obviously, tons of people are safe. But also, yeah, some bad things do happen. So it kind of depends on where do you live? Where do you spend time at night? Are you walking the streets alone? Are you male? Are you female? Are you intimidating looking or are you not intimidating looking? Yeah, there could be two buildings in New York City, Andrew, that are right across the street from each other. And one building has a completely different risk exposure as an Asian living in it than the building across the street. Literally, we're talking about like a hundred feet separating a completely different life. So I don't like it when people are trying to categorize like geographic regions. That sounds like way oversimplified to me. Somebody could be super safe anywhere. But yeah, it's just different depending on like what life you live, where you live, what times you're out, who you're seeing, what kind are you having, upside, downside, neutral interactions. But listen, guys, it's all an equation. And I guess, Andrew, to say that, that is a more mathematical way of saying street smarts. Yeah, have street smarts, but- Street mathematics. But the street smarts stack on top of each other, you know? It's not just, I don't wanna just say, oh, be more street smart because it's like, well, how do you? It's like, listen, if you wanna think about things in a mathematical way, guys, your safety is an equation. So just plug and chug those variables and you'll kinda know. Like nobody knows the exact numbers, right? Oh, you live in Upper West Side. How much safer is that? Is that 40 or 80% safer? Is it 20% safer? We don't know those exact numbers, but you kinda know if it's positive or negative, if it's high or it's low, okay? Shout out to the conditional probability formula. This was brought up by somebody who was a mathematics statistics major. Point number two, Andrew. America is just a very complicated place that is sometimes very chaotic and very layered. Wait, wait, wait, David, David, David. You telling me that a country with different climates, with different population, different immigrant populations, different freedoms, the ability to have guns and even do drugs to a certain extent, you know, you're telling me that this country's complex? Yeah. I don't believe it. Somebody in the comment section was from China and was like, yeah, it's pretty interesting because U.S. is only 25% of the population of China, but honestly, it is probably like 1,000 times more diverse in the lifestyle, the type of people and their way of life. I mean, yeah, I don't know if it's 1,000, but it's way more diverse for sure, guys. And we know this because there's different like laws and systems that kinda make it more diverse. I mean, even just look at the whole abortion thing going on right now. It's like insane, it's state to state. Capitalism does, you know, allow for a lot of diversity because there's a lot of different socioeconomic levels. And by the way, that's why America is such an interesting, fascinating, textured place to live that in my eyes is so interesting, but man, it can get really crazy. And we just spent a bunch of time in Canada, less layered, less chaotic, for sure. I don't wanna say Canada's less interesting. I mean, we were in Toronto, I had a great time and the people are really nice, but it is less diverse and a little bit more in the middle. Everything's like kinda pushed down from the top and pulled up from the bottom. Way more social compression, less poor people, less rich people. I will say this, the homeless people in Canada, they seem less erratic. They seem a little bit more smiley and I think it's because they get universal healthcare. Somebody was saying, yeah, you know, it's crazy. Sometimes you meet somebody that tells you go back to China and then the next white person you meet, their kids study Mandarin and love Chinese culture. Yeah. And he was just like, yeah, it's just person to person. It can vary so incredibly much. Ah, I used to work retail, very AZN job. I used to sell telecom wireless in college and enter in the zone I was working in. Sometimes I would meet 200 people a day. In terms of me being Asian, I had people not want to shake my hand because they thought I had SARS. Some people saw, I don't want to do business with that guy. Get somebody else to sell me a Blackberry. He's not going to give me a good deal. He's an Asian to other people saying, Oh, give me the Asian. He's going to get me in and out of here. The most efficient build a Toyota Lexus style way possible. And I had other people, a lady who worked at Microsoft with a bunch of Asians go, Why are you doing this job? You need to be moving up the corporate ladder at Verizon instead of working retail with all these other bums. She almost tried to like save me when I said, Hey, I'm just an undergrad in college right now. It was a good job for me right now. I mean, whatever your job is, listen, a lot of people, they don't face racism during the weekday, but during the weekend, you go to different places. You're out on the street more. It could be more dangerous. And I will say this. One thing that they didn't mention in the Reddit post, Andrew, sometimes you need an activator agent. Like, let's say, for example, you're a regular Asian on the street. Yeah, people would have to be pretty racist. It happens though. Obviously we've all seen the cases of this extremity, that extremity. Imagine if you were an Asian cop or an Asian politician, something, now you have two charged identities on you. The layers are there. And that's like a double whammy. Now I would imagine that Asian cops, Asian judges, Asian politicians, where they have to knock door to door, being like, I'm running for city council. I've been trying to represent you and solve your problems. Person who's completely different from me. They might hear a hundred thousand percent more crazy things about their race, you know, good and bad. Yeah. Okay. Moving on to our third point that you got to remember, David, what is it? Asians just need to make sure that they're not only becoming safer in a dangerous environment, but also being proactive to make that environment just overall safer. Yeah. So I think it's kind of like about playing defense and offense. You know, I think a lot of Asians that I know, know how to survive. They know how to avoid things. Matisse Diable, all defense, no offense. Yeah. But they don't know how to make things safer. And I do think that obviously in America as an immigrant group, whether you're 1G, 2G, 3G, which is referring to first gen, second gen, third gen. Shout out to the Reddit guy who used that. I think that's a kind of cool way to refer to it. But depending on what level you're at, you feel different levels of ownership over the country. And I do think that people who feel more confident and ownership over how they live in their identities, they're more willing to step out and like, do like, I don't want to say like mini police work in their community, but just like be more proactive in their safety. For sure. Like talking to people, asking people, keeping an eye out or asking kids like, oh, where are your parents at? Or even if you're a bunch of like buff Asian guys or just Asian dudes. You're referring to just being a good steward and having camaraderie within a community. Yeah. Because I think a lot of immigrants who feel like, oh, this isn't my country. I don't have any ownership. I don't want to get involved. But that doesn't make your area any safer. I'm not saying I don't understand that feeling, but at some point you need to be able to step up. Yeah. I think that Asians are getting to that point. More and more Asian Americans that are born here. But I think that obviously, anytime you notice something like Sinophobia, which is very more on a macro media level, and then the anti-Asian hate, which is more visceral because you could see that and feel that depending on, you know, your own risk exposure and who you've come across. I think it's easy to look at a baseline threshold situation and go, oh, if I increase my cautiousness or my scaredness, I will be able to control my probabilities. But there also has to be, to be said, something for caretaking and improving the situation, playing offense. I'm not saying everybody got to be Batman, guys. I'm talking about Robert Pattinson, Batman. But not everybody should be this guy in Batman, the Asian guy in the beginning of the movie who was getting picked on by everybody. Here's my last little thing. Listen, I know, and this is for Asian guys out there, because we're always wondering like, what more can we do within reason, right? Without becoming like all MMA fighters and getting like tactical vests on and training like how police people do, whatever. I'm just saying like, you know, as healthy young Asian guys, if you're in a group together, like you have to understand that you essentially also double, not just as a friend group, but as security detail for other Asians or anybody for that matter. So you just have to know as a group of guys together, especially at a time like this, there is a little bit of an expectation that maybe you guys are thinking about not just your own safety, but other people's safety a little bit too. Right, at least in a radius zone, like, you know, like a radar zone. Like if you like hanging outside of your friends' bars, like sometimes we hang out outside of our friends' restaurants and whatever, but I'm not gonna lie when it's New York City and I'm outside, I do have my head on a swivel. I'm looking like, you know, who's, like, is everything gonna be safe? Are we safe? Is other people safe? Like, I'm not saying I'm gonna save the day and I'm a superhero, right? But it's on my mind. Yeah, so I think that that's something that we would like to put out into the ether, into the universe. Hopefully people, you know, the more they hear it, at least the more they think about it, come to your own conclusions. I'm not here to tell anybody how to live their life. I couldn't control you even if I wanted to. So again, to run down the points and recap, guys, your safety is a conditional probability formula. Long story short, Andrew, that's just street IQ. But providing, I'm just using a book smart IQ way to describe street IQ. Point number two, America is a very complicated, layered place with a lot of complex and potentially chaotic layers to it. That's what people like about it. That's what people hate about it. This is the country that we live in. It's a great place for a lot of opportunities. Opportunities that are positive and a lot of bad opportunities too. You need to know how you interface with that chaos or do you just want to remove yourself from and move to Irvine, California? Point number three, Asians just need to make sure they are training offensively as well as defensively. You got to play both sides of the ball, guys. You can't just be a pure offensive player like Buddy Heald. And you can't just be a pure defensive player like Matisse Theibel. Both of those guys getting benched right now, guys. It's the playoffs. Both guys unplayable in the playoffs. Hey, man, don't just be a buff guy for the IG and the EDC, guys. Be a buff guy for your community. So anyway, like we said, Reddit thread, a lot of really interesting stuff in there. People were talking about microaggressions. People were talking about this, that we chose to derive these three main points from it. We'll link you to the Reddit thread below. Please let us know what you think in the comment section below. I know there has been an uptick in crime nationally, but is it safe for Asians to move to America? I think it's all about probabilities and how you manage them. Hopefully, you get to a point where you can manage them for other people a little bit as well. Hey, and one person said, it's kind of sad that we have to say it depends as an answer to that question. But that's where we're at, guys. Please let us know. Like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. Until next time, it's the Hot Paw Boys. We out, peace.