Frankly in Love

by David Yoon

Arguing with Mom-n-Dad is pointless, because the wind will blow wherever it wants according to its own infuriating wind-logic. Only the insane would keep trying to change them. Especially when they end things with their just-joking defense. Like now: “No racist,” says Mom, wounded. “We just joking.”

In Language class Ms. Chit would called this code switching. It’s like switching accents, but at a more micro level. The idea is that you don’t speak the same way with your friends (California English Casual) that you do with a teacher (California English Formal), or a girl (California English Singsong), or your immigrant parents (California English Exasperated). You change how you talk to best adapt to whoever you’re talking to. But it’s not just about adaptation, as Ms. Chit explained. People can code switch to confuse others, express dominance or submission, or disguise themselves.

She laughs. Let me tell you something. I live to make people laugh. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers, doesn’t matter. I just have to. If you for some reason don’t know how to make someone laugh, then learn. Study that shit like it’s the SAT. If you are so unfortunate as to have no one in your life who can make you laugh, drop everything and find someone. Cross the desert if you must. Because laughter isn’t just about the funny. Laughter is the music of the deep cosmos connecting all human beings that says all the things mere words cannot.

I lift the glass, then take a sip. It’s absolutely terrible. I can’t understand why anyone would drink water that has had hops and twigs and shit rotting in it for weeks.

White people can describe themselves with just American. Only when pressed do they go into their ethnic heritage. Doesn’t seem fair that I have to forever explain my origin story with that silent hyphen, whereas white people don’t.

She may call herself European-American, but to most of the world she’s just white. As a member of the majority, she belongs everywhere. As the product of a long, mixed-up heritage, she belongs nowhere.

Snapstory is an app where you can share photos. Everyone uses it, everyone loves it, everyone hates it. It’s basically this horrible corporate surveillance machine that cranks out nonstop soul-crushing envy as a side bonus.

“White can be anything it wants and be white last, not first.”

People who let themselves learn new things are the best kind of people.

Isaac Newton was a groundbreaking scientist from the seventeenth century. But he was also super into the occult, and wrote a lot about creationism and how there must be some way to turn lead into gold. Dr. Seuss was a groundbreaking children’s book author beloved for his antifascist humanism. But in his early career, he drew a lot of racist cartoons depicting black people as savages and mocking Japanese-American internment victims. He was full of remorse for this earlier version of himself for his entire life. Nothing is just any one single thing. In fact, what starts out as one thing can turn out to be something completely different.