One of my personal laments about the pandemic is that it has hampered my ability to do street photography. There are a few reasons for this. When numbers spike, people tend to stay indoors; with reduced pedestrian traffic, the streets are less vibrant. When people wear masks, there is less opportunity for personal interaction; people need to read one another’s facial expressions. And our heightened state of anxiety means that we tend to be warier of one another; it’s harder to make the initial approach when everyone is so fearful.
Nevertheless, opportunities do arise, as with this gentleman who was standing in line behind me as we were waiting one Saturday morning for the Evergreen Brick Works market to open. There we stood, two white middle-aged men with our Asian wives, him with a “Stop Asian Hate” mask and me with a camera. It seemed an obvious moment and he was happy to pose.
As an aside, I note that an Asian wife doesn’t give a white man a pass in conversations about race and racism. After all, Derek Chauvin, the police officer who murdered George Floyd, was married to Kellie May Xiong Chauvin. (She filed for divorce 3 days after the murder.) There is a narrative applied to a subset of mixed-race marriages that has the white man deliberately seek out a submissive Asian wife because, in true incel fashion, he can’t stand the Stacys of the world, steeped as they are in the teachings of feminism and sexual assertiveness. He needs someone who will say yes to his every whim.
I can’t speak for anyone else’s marriage. I can barely speak for my own. If you want the inside scoop on our relationship, you’d better talk to my wife. I doubt she’d complain that I married her so I’d have someone to do all the cooking and cleaning. She’s more likely to complain that whenever we go out, I bring a camera with me.
