She’s doing all of this to draw attention to herself: despite all the opportunities the others created for her her entire life, she’s chronically underachieved. This was her chance to ride the coattails of Sidwell, the zeitgeist, but it, like it seems everything else, plopped with a whimper

She’s probably angrier now than she’s ever been, and she’s been very angry at Sidwell for a very long time by her own admission

The only thing her degrees juxtaposed with her attitude prove is the extreme privilege and minimal positive impact (maximum grudge).

DP. You can be provincial in any setting. Like the author in Sidwell.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“I realized that the last time I felt this type of anger and embarrassment was when I was in high school at Sidwell Friends”

Funny, she (presumably) reported her own medium piece about a Lululemon racist incident that wasn’t

We read it for fun (Asian family) and no one thought a frazzled salesperson repeating distancing rules sounded racist. There’s racism for sure and some behaved inexcusably during Covid but this ain’t it

Yet somehow the “professorial lecturer and writer” as it’s signed by her, worked her old school into it. Mind boggles.

To be fair, the incident in Lululemon did in fact sound racist and I have plenty of Chinese-American friends who had similar incidents occur throughout the country, even in California with a high Asian population.

To be fair what about it sounded racist to you other than Lululemon? And why did she go to Lululemon since it’s racist? And how did Sidwell get dragged into this too?!

What a weirdo

You didn't read the article did you? The store was treating an Asian customer differently than caucasian customers. That is racist, sweetheart.

DP. If what she described actually happened at Lululemon, I agree with you. It was racist. However, I don’t understand why she mentioned Sidwell in the article. I don’t believe this woman never experienced another racist incident, between high school and her 50s.

Why does she feel the need to blame Sidwell for everything? It’s a very strange fixation.

I've encountered a couple of people who carry Sidwell in a similar way. Only Sidwell-- I've never observed this from people who went to Brearly/Collegiate/etc or even national schools like Andover/Exeter. It occupies an outsize place in some alumnus' heads for reasons I don't understand. Which is weird because at the end of the day, it's a local school. One of the best in the area, sure, but the key there is in the area. Being obsessed with Sidwell, to me, shows a strange blend of grandiosity and lack of worldliness. It's a provincial obsession. Not to mention it's K12, so it also means they're unable to move on from childhood.

I don’t think the bolded applies in the author’s case. Worldliness doesn’t seem to be the issue here. She received her undergraduate degree from Sophia University in Japan, and she has graduate degrees from Penn and Harvard. I think she has an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, and for some reason Sidwell is her target. One’s childhood years are foundational and formative.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And? ^^^

Strangely there is minimal biographical information about Emma Sasaki and no author’s webpage that I could find. It’s curious. Almost like she doesn’t want anyone to know who she is.

Anyone who knows her, knows it her book. She wants everyone to know that she is the author.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“I realized that the last time I felt this type of anger and embarrassment was when I was in high school at Sidwell Friends”

Funny, she (presumably) reported her own medium piece about a Lululemon racist incident that wasn’t

We read it for fun (Asian family) and no one thought a frazzled salesperson repeating distancing rules sounded racist. There’s racism for sure and some behaved inexcusably during Covid but this ain’t it

Yet somehow the “professorial lecturer and writer” as it’s signed by her, worked her old school into it. Mind boggles.

To be fair, the incident in Lululemon did in fact sound racist and I have plenty of Chinese-American friends who had similar incidents occur throughout the country, even in California with a high Asian population.

To be fair what about it sounded racist to you other than Lululemon? And why did she go to Lululemon since it’s racist? And how did Sidwell get dragged into this too?!

What a weirdo

You didn't read the article did you? The store was treating an Asian customer differently than caucasian customers. That is racist, sweetheart.

DP. If what she described actually happened at Lululemon, I agree with you. It was racist. However, I don’t understand why she mentioned Sidwell in the article. I don’t believe this woman never experienced another racist incident, between high school and her 50s.

Why does she feel the need to blame Sidwell for everything? It’s a very strange fixation.

I’d love to hear from the salesperson. There is no way it happened the way she wrote it. Based on what I know about her, she wanted to write about the topic and read about all the despicable anti-Asian racism during the pandemic, went to Lululemon to manufacture some sort of outrage, went up and close to the salesperson who may have freaked out as she would with anyone else, then didn’t confront her or correct her but lurked to see if anyone else would be treated in the exactly same way, and they blew it out of all proportion

Why do I think this - because I too shopped in Lululemon during the pandemic. There’s one around the corner. Nothing ever happened at all. In fact, I appreciated their pandemic rules. And if I were to go incite someone to be a racist to an Asian and make it believable, Lululemon, whose owner is notorious for the anti- Asian naming of the stores, would be the venue of choice

I apologize in advance if I’m wrong but the story seems very manufactured and the real purpose is to drag Sidwell for the “anger and embarrassment” the author claims to still feel decades later for some undisclosed reason. Also, if it’s all true, why did she take it down?!

Sidwell Alumni Magazine for the win: publishes her toxic quote as is… crickets

Recollections may vary

It’s not the book itself that holds the interest. It’s the mix with the obsessive personality, wanting to out herself when no one cares, murky and perplexing motivation evident in her public outbursts (dragging Sidwell into a Lululemon spat with an overtense salesperson in charge of the pandemic distancing, “my kids go to Maret and I’m glad for it” quote to the Sidwell alumni magazine).

She is like Martha from the Baby Reindeer. It’s her own story that could get the Hollywood treatment. In which case, I’m quite certain her Asian family of origin and she have never made anyone of another race in DC feel…

Anyway, it’s a privilege just to be here for the grand reveal (unravel?), I’ll get the popcorn

I have no doubt it’s being *shopped* around Hollywood. Why stop with the delusions and obsessive behaviors now when they’ve carried you forward the last 35 years?

If there is a Hollywood treatment I trust they will delve into just how incredibly privileged and kept the author has been her entire life. That’s how she has the time to obsess. Her dissertation obtained late in life (like Albright’s when she was married to a Guggenheim) is trite (some people go to the internet to read about a political topic they are interested in because they might be interested in it) full of typos too, based flimsily as it is on a bunch of “interviews” and two quasi-surveys. Does the privilege have no limits?

Does being handed things on a silver platter predispose one to hatred? Albright too was full of hate (albeit also clever).

Anonymous wrote:It’s being shopped around Hollywood for a tv deal!

I was googling to find out if this was true (of course it's not) and I found the few reviews this book has gotten. It's telling the Post passed on reviewing it, despite the local and DEI angles.

"she occasionally veers toward eye-rolling dialogue ("Mother, the dominant paradigm replicates itself if you sim­ply leave change to institutional decision-making!") and unbelievable scenarios (Aki outing a manipulative parent's extramarital affair during a meeting by declaring, "You care so much about your son you've been sharpening the guidance counselor's pencil"--before being promoted to head of the upper school!).
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/sar-issue.html?issue=1236#m23996

"Sasaki’s timely if muddled debut"
Some of the satire feels a bit convoluted—Aki is understandably conflicted, but it’s sometimes hard to tell whether Sasaki means to skewer the cloistered world of private schools or the cultural forces that make her characters believe such institutions are a necessary evil.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781639107834

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“I realized that the last time I felt this type of anger and embarrassment was when I was in high school at Sidwell Friends”

Funny, she (presumably) reported her own medium piece about a Lululemon racist incident that wasn’t

We read it for fun (Asian family) and no one thought a frazzled salesperson repeating distancing rules sounded racist. There’s racism for sure and some behaved inexcusably during Covid but this ain’t it

Yet somehow the “professorial lecturer and writer” as it’s signed by her, worked her old school into it. Mind boggles.

To be fair, the incident in Lululemon did in fact sound racist and I have plenty of Chinese-American friends who had similar incidents occur throughout the country, even in California with a high Asian population.

To be fair what about it sounded racist to you other than Lululemon? And why did she go to Lululemon since it’s racist? And how did Sidwell get dragged into this too?!

What a weirdo

You didn't read the article did you? The store was treating an Asian customer differently than caucasian customers. That is racist, sweetheart.

DP. If what she described actually happened at Lululemon, I agree with you. It was racist. However, I don’t understand why she mentioned Sidwell in the article. I don’t believe this woman never experienced another racist incident, between high school and her 50s.

Why does she feel the need to blame Sidwell for everything? It’s a very strange fixation.

I've encountered a couple of people who carry Sidwell in a similar way. Only Sidwell-- I've never observed this from people who went to Brearly/Collegiate/etc or even national schools like Andover/Exeter. It occupies an outsize place in some alumnus' heads for reasons I don't understand. Which is weird because at the end of the day, it's a local school. One of the best in the area, sure, but the key there is in the area. Being obsessed with Sidwell, to me, shows a strange blend of grandiosity and lack of worldliness. It's a provincial obsession. Not to mention it's K12, so it also means they're unable to move on from childhood.

She presents as too self-serving to be a credible narrator.

What I can’t understand is why she didn’t wait a few years to let her kids graduate first. I suspect she’s really self-deluded and thought she wrote the next The Hate U Give

Anonymous wrote:And? ^^^

Strangely there is minimal biographical information about Emma Sasaki and no author’s webpage that I could find. It’s curious. Almost like she doesn’t want anyone to know who she is.

Anyone who knows her, knows it her book. She wants everyone to know that she is the author.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“I realized that the last time I felt this type of anger and embarrassment was when I was in high school at Sidwell Friends”

Funny, she (presumably) reported her own medium piece about a Lululemon racist incident that wasn’t

We read it for fun (Asian family) and no one thought a frazzled salesperson repeating distancing rules sounded racist. There’s racism for sure and some behaved inexcusably during Covid but this ain’t it

Yet somehow the “professorial lecturer and writer” as it’s signed by her, worked her old school into it. Mind boggles.

To be fair, the incident in Lululemon did in fact sound racist and I have plenty of Chinese-American friends who had similar incidents occur throughout the country, even in California with a high Asian population.

To be fair what about it sounded racist to you other than Lululemon? And why did she go to Lululemon since it’s racist? And how did Sidwell get dragged into this too?!

What a weirdo

You didn't read the article did you? The store was treating an Asian customer differently than caucasian customers. That is racist, sweetheart.

DP. If what she described actually happened at Lululemon, I agree with you. It was racist. However, I don’t understand why she mentioned Sidwell in the article. I don’t believe this woman never experienced another racist incident, between high school and her 50s.

Why does she feel the need to blame Sidwell for everything? It’s a very strange fixation.

You’re kidding, right?