Dear Alison Roman

Dear Alison Roman, 

Yea, it's wrong what you said about Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo. People are pissed and rightly so. My guess though is you've been feeling the deep burn of backlash over the past few days. You've been feeling the reactions and hurt of women who are in pain. But you must also be feeling the pain inside yourself too. The pain at the root of those interview comments. The pain of your insecurities. The pain of its public display. The pain in the shame of your unconscious remarks and conditioning. 

There has been a lot of discussion about your privilege as a white woman and its role in enabling your ability and capacity to make such comments. While I won't excuse your comments or your privilege, I won't hold it against you. I won't stop supporting your work either out of anger. Doing so would be one and the same with your thoughtless comments. Doing so would be perpetuating the work of patriarchy and white supremacy. I refuse to participate in this cycle of violence against women. 

You see, you and I, we are no different in how we've been socialized to have comparative mind with other women. We've been socialized to pit ourselves against each other. We've been socialized to not even think of ourselves in the same game with men because none of us are good enough. This conditioning is how the power and authority of patriarchy continues to be sustained. And it's up to us as women to examine these patterns of conditioning closely so that we can break these cycles for our younger sisters and daughters. 

As an Asian American woman, I hope you can consider being a fierce and vocal ally to women of color who are hustling and trying to live their truths and purposes in a world that doesn't make it easy for us to be successful and authentic. 

As a fellow human being, I hope you can sit with your pain compassionately and consider this moment of suffering as a gift for learning how to choose wiser thought, speech, and action in the future. 

We're all learning too. 

Oh, and thanks for your caramelized shallot anchovy pasta recipe. It's fucking delicious. 

Danielle